HOMELAND INSECURITY: short-timers or vacancies in 15 of 45 top jobs -- ‘SHARKNADO’ and ‘B-movie bipartisanship’: Camp cable flick does better on Twitter than in ratings; sequel mulled

BREAKING – “Abortion Bill Finally Passes Texas Legislature,” by Texas Tribune’s Morgan Smith, Becca Aaronson and Shefali Luthra: “After impassioned … speeches from lawmakers in both parties noting the emotions that have followed House Bill 2 through the legislative process, the Texas Senate approved the omnibus abortion measure late Friday night. The measure restricting abortions in Texas is now headed to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk … The crowd outside the chamber erupted after HB 2 passed with a vote of 19-11. … State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who stopped the abortion bill from passing with an hours-long filibuster that ended the first special session, spoke against the bill briefly on Friday. ‘We all believe in the beauty and the wonder of human life … The fight for the future of Texas is just beginning.’” http://bit.ly/12nzi3a

--AP’s Chris Tomlinson and Will Weissert, in Austin: “[T]he bill … will ban abortions after 20 weeks, require abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and require all abortions take place in surgical centers.”

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OBAMA 2.0 – “Napolitano departure widens DHS leadership gap,” by AP’s Eileen Sullivan and Alicia C. Caldwell: “The leadership vacancy created by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's resignation is the latest … blow to a department where one-third of the heads of key agencies and divisions have been filled with acting officials or remained vacant for months. Napolitano's departure, slated for September, will create the 15th hole in the department's 45 leadership positions. Napolitano's chief of staff and the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are leaving this month. The deputy secretary, general counsel, heads of Customs and Border Protection, privacy, legislative affairs, intelligence and analysis and more are filled with acting officials. … [T]he executive secretariat, inspector general and deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity remain vacant.

“The pattern of putting acting officials in leadership positions at the Homeland Security Department -- sometimes replacing acting officials with other acting officials -- has been going on for months. This swath of vacancies raises questions about how a department depleted of permanent leadership could implement changes, particularly as Congress considers overhauling the nation's immigration system. …

“Napolitano on Friday announced she would be leaving her post in early September to become the president of the University of California school systems. … The acting undersecretary at the department is poised to take over as acting secretary unless the Senate confirms the president's nominee for Homeland Security undersecretary before Napolitano leaves. If that happens, the new undersecretary would assume the role of acting secretary until the president names a replacement. … Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the securing of the nation's borders, has not had a Senate-confirmed leader since the George W. Bush administration. President Barack Obama in 2010 exercised his ability to bypass Congress and appoint Alan Bersin as head of CBP. But that appointment was up at the end of 2011. The acting commissioner who replaced Bersin recently retired from government, only to be replaced by another acting commissioner.

“Without a Senate-confirmed commissioner of CBP, it will be difficult to put in place [a] border strategy … And not having a permanent inspector general to serve as the department's watchdog is a significant problem, said Skinner, who once served in an acting capacity in that role. ‘The longer that position stays vacant, the more vulnerable the department becomes.’” http://bit.ly/1dtLULd

--DRUDGE headline: “BIG SIS: BYE.”

--THE SHORT LIST -- Kevin Robillard and Scott Wong with Burgess Everett, Kathryn A. Wolfe, Jennifer Epstein and Jonathan Allen: “TSA chief John Pistole, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and a host of names from the Hill are popping up in the initial round of possible replacements for … Napolitano. … [G]iving Pistole the secretary’s job could be a reward for his patience after he took most of the congressional slings and arrows over TSA’s dealings with air travelers. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) put out a statement pushing Kelly, and saying he had called White House chief of staff Denis McDonough to recommend the commissioner … Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) [former House Homeland chair, and still a member of the committee] also recommended Kelly … Senate Homeland Security Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) offered former Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute. …

“Another potential candidate is Thad Allen, who retired as commandant of the Coast Guard in 2010. He helped lead responses to both Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Hill names in the rumor mill include House Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). He got an endorsement from Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), a member of the panel, although Thompson has blasted TSA in recent years over concerns about racial profiling, a lack of minority contracts and privacy-invading body-scanner machines. … Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) floated a cross-party pick in Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who was the longtime top Republican on the Senate’s Homeland Security panel. … It’s doubtful, though, that Republicans would want to risk losing her Senate seat.” http://politi.co/17aZO3g

--WashPost lead Style section story, “Anyone want the ‘worst’ job in D.C.?” by Dan Zak: “Wanted: A public servant who will pledge to keep America safe in a world that is fundamentally, relentlessly, hide-under-your-bed dangerous. Must have cool temperament, intestinal fortitude. Will receive much criticism, scant praise. … Janet Napolitano will step down in September from … secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which might be considered the worst job in politics by anyone with a nervous system and a healthy sense of cowardice. If it’s not the worst, then it’s the most perilous and unsung. … DHS secretary is the youngest Cabinet-level job — formally established by Congress in late 2002 in response to … Sept. 11 … and yet it’s also one of the most expansive and fraught. The secretary’s portfolio includes terrorism, natural disasters, cybersecurity and widespread medical crises. …

“A Nexis database search for references to the ‘worst job in Washington’ and ‘worst job in politics’ turns up many top positions in the capital, including: the vice president, the president’s chief of staff, speaker of the House and majority leader during this current Congress, and, for several years in the 1990s, the job held by lawyer Lanny J. Davis, who was special counsel to Bill Clinton during his various scandals.” http://wapo.st/1bwSHWp

TOP TALKER – “'Sharknado' Draws More Tweets Than 'Game of Thrones' Wedding Episode: At its peak, TV watchers were posting more than 5,000 tweets a minute about the campy Syfy channel movie” – Hollywood Reporter: “A 90 minute campy Syfy channel movie that climaxes with a duel between a man with a chainsaw and a flying shark was a social media hit on a quiet summer night. There were more than 604,000 tweets about the irresistible Sharknado from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. ET on Thursday, according to social media analytics firm Fizziology. The Syfy film, which starred Tara Reid, Ian Ziering and Cassie Scerbo, premiered at 9 p.m. ET/PT. … HBO's widely discussed Game of Thrones ‘Red Wedding’ episode drew 241,000 tweets … Twitter itself also contextualized the outsized response to the sharks-meet-tornados B-movie … The microblogging platform's official data account posted a chart showing a peak of more than 5,000 tweets a minute were referencing Sharknado at 10:58 p.m. ET.” http://bit.ly/12Lf43x

--HEADLINE DU JOUR: FamousDC, “Jumped the sharknado”

--“‘Sharknado’'s Amazing Political Power,” by Bloomberg Businessweek’s Joshua Green: The “sudden breakout of bipartisanship was entirely unexpected. The catalyst was … the cultural phenomenon of Sharknado, the Syfy channel’s terrible/awesome B-movie about a gigantic tornado that sucks up millions of ferocious sharks from the Pacific Ocean and rains them down on a terrified Los Angeles. … Even before the movie started, … it was generating unusual Twitter buzz. That traffic exploded as the Sharknado got going, oddly finding its most passionate audience among political types of both parties, who had a weird kind of moment as the movie progressed. Call it ‘B-movie bipartisanship.’ … I asked a Republican ad buyer—Will Feltus, the senior vice president of research at National Media—if he had any demographic information on Syfy’s audience. … [The] audience [for the Syfy basic-cable channel] is almost perfectly bipartisan.” http://buswk.co/1dtXhCL

--“Syfy Already Talking ‘Sharknado’ Sequel,” by Variety’s AJ Marechal: “[P]lans have yet to coalese. For now, the cabler is planning a rerun of the pic … Thursday at 7 p.m. to serve as a lead-in to Frankie Muniz-starrer ‘Blast Vegas.’ … ‘We’ve had other movies where the titles would catch some buzz, like “Sharktopus” or “Jersey Shore Shark Attack,”’ explained Thomas Vitale, Syfy’s exec veep of programming and original movies. ‘But the level that ‘Sharknado’ reached, that was a surprise.’ … ‘Sharknado’ … is about exactly what the hodgepodge name implies: a shark-filled tornado that wrecks havoc on Los Angeles. Poster art for the pic even reads: ‘SHARKNADO…ENOUGH SAID!’ … With a budget of about $1.5 to $2 million, Syfy footed just shy of half the bill in the co-production of ‘Sharknado.’

“Public interest in the title and key art — which went viral after an unveiling at Cannes in May — drove no-cost promotion of the film. While Syfy markets its original movies on air and on its Internet properties, the cabler doesn’t put its wallet behind traditional off air marketing, knowing that with the right title and concept, these kind of campy creature features market themselves. And free-media buzz on social platforms is arguably worth as much as any billboard or bus side to drive tune-in.” http://bit.ly/1bx2Yll

--“Sharknado' doesn't have the same bite in ratings as on Twitter” – L.A. Times’ Joe Flint: “Almost 1.4 million people tuned in … The median age … was 46.8.”

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“NEW LEAK GUIDELINES rein in DOJ approach,” by Jennifer Epstein and Josh Gerstein: “Attorney General Eric Holder [released] guidelines aimed at better defining — and reining in — the Justice Department’s approach to leak investigations. … He said the new guidelines — under which, most significantly, the records of a journalist will only be collected if that person is the focus of a criminal investigation — will make ‘a meaningful difference,’ with the Justice Department effectively forgoing the opportunity to use search warrants to obtain journalists’ emails or other work product, as long as the reporters are engaged in routine newsgathering activities. … [P]rosecutors will no longer seek the content of emails directly from internet service providers in cases involving journalists.” http://politi.co/13cnBv8

SPORTS BLINK – N.Y. Times A1, “Doping Inquiry Has Baseball Playing Tough,” by Steve Eder, with Nick Madigan in Miami: “Mark J. Sullivan worked for the Secret Service for the past 30 years. He was in charge of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s security detail when she was first lady, and he became the director of the agency for nearly seven years. Now Major League Baseball has deployed him in its pursuit of players suspected of doping. His hiring is one of the most notable examples of the tough means the league is using to try to expose some of its biggest stars. … [O]ver the past six months, Major League Baseball has engaged in a dogged pursuit of its own stars, a costly doping investigation highly unusual for a professional sports league … Baseball’s efforts [are] spearheaded by its investigations unit at the direction of Commissioner Bud Selig … Witnesses have complained of unconventional, if not overly aggressive, tactics.” http://nyti.ms/12npqXg

MEDIAWATCH – N.Y. Times B5, “Times Names a New National Editor,” by Christine Haughney: “The New York Times on Friday named Alison Mitchell, its weekend editor, as the paper’s new national editor. Ms. Mitchell joined The Times in 1992 as a metro reporter, then moved on to work as a White House correspondent and to cover Congress. She ran the Washington bureau’s Congressional coverage and, as an editor, oversaw the paper’s education desk. She has worked as The Times’s weekend editor [plans the Sun. and Mon. A1s starting Wed., and runs the paper on weekends] since 2008. She graduated from Harvard University and started her career at The Record in Bergen County, N.J. She joined The Times from Newsday, where she worked for 15 years. She covered politics there, among other subjects, and was a Moscow correspondent in her last assignment. In a memo to the newsroom, Jill Abramson, the executive editor, said about Ms. Mitchell that ‘national editor is the job she was born to do.’

“Ms. Mitchell is replacing Sam Sifton, who has been asked by Ms. Abramson to spearhead two new digital initiatives. The first is to create an online magazine that focuses on longer, interactive projects like the Snow Fall package that won a Pulitzer Prize this year. Mr. Sifton, a former restaurant critic for the paper who has edited the dining section and led the culture department, is additionally working to create a dining news product for The Times. Mr. Sifton, a graduate of Harvard as well, came to The Times in 2002.” http://nyti.ms/1aj2SfJ

--MORE FROM JILL’S MEMO: “Dear Colleagues, … My goal has been to find the best digital talent in the newsroom and appoint people to very senior editing roles that report directly to [managing editor] Dean [Baquet] and me. Before I get specific, it’s worth noting that we are by far the most read newspaper Web site, thanks to all of your heroic work and innovation. At a time when mobile traffic is nearing half our visits, we are reaching a much broader array of readers. … First, by way of background, I promoted Tom Bodkin to deputy managing editor and he has also assumed the important role as the company’s design director (a joint report to me and [CEO] Mark Thompson) … I also asked Larry Ingrassia and Ian Fisher to become assistant managing editors and to focus on and lead our main digital priorities. Next, I asked Aron Pilhofer and Steve Duenes to become associate managing editors to help invent the best possible interactive experiences and dazzling presentations of our digital journalism. Meanwhile, Rebecca Howard has already energized our burgeoning video efforts and will soon be adding key members to her team. …

“[Sam Sifton’s] first assignment is to create an immersive digital magazine experience, a lean back read that will include new, multimedia narratives in the tradition of Snow Fall and last weekend’s compelling account of the Arizona fire, as well as some of the best reads published during the previous week. … (This is a different product from the Sunday magazine, where Hugo Lindgren has been unendingly creative in digital presentations) … The second assignment puts Sam’s incredible depth as a food editor and food writer to use in creating a new dining news product, separate from our current dining report and section led so expertly by Susan Edgerley, who has already drawn up some very exciting ideas for expanding our dining coverage …

“Arthur Gregg Sulzberger [son of the publisher] will also take a leave from metro to be the editor in charge of a new ideas task force, which will function as the newsroom’s version of a skunk-works team, a creative team that will think up and propose new ways to expand our news offerings digitally. He, too, has displayed impressive creative inventiveness and leadership as a national correspondent [in Kansas City, Mo.] and as a Metro reporter and editor. … Fondly, Jill.”

THE NEW CNN – “Gavel-to-gavel Zimmerman trial coverage hints at CNN's new path,” by Reuters’ Eric Kelsey in L.A.: “Although audiences may not be as large as [CNN Worldwide President Jeff] Zucker would like, the network has made its big bet on high-profile human interest stories … Horizon Media analyst Brad Adgate[:] ‘Who's at home watching TV? Those watching all these courtroom dramas and talk shows.’ … CNN, which has averaged 592,000 viewers between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. during the Zimmerman trial, … placed second in that same time behind Fox, … which has attracted about 1 million viewers on average. Only in the final week has CNN been able to surpass HLN in viewers. … Six months into the Zucker era, CNN does appear to be riding a wave in the ratings, as its daily average audience rose 49 percent to 476,000 viewers between April and June from the same period last year, and topped MSNBC in primetime ratings for the first time since 2009. … In CNN's search for a niche, it found ratings success in … Paula Deen … A primetime special devoted to Deen, Zimmerman and racial language boosted ratings by almost 60 percent in the same time slot from previous weeks.” http://reut.rs/12v21Xj

THE PRESIDENT’S WEEK AHEAD: “On Saturday and Sunday, there are no public events scheduled. … On Monday, the President and the First Lady will host former President George H. W. Bush, former First Lady Barbara Bush, and members of the Bush family for an event to honor the winner of the 5,000th Daily Point of Light Award. Points of Light – the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service – mobilizes millions of people to take action that is changing the world and recognizes individuals who are making a difference through service and volunteerism. … On Thursday, the President will participate in an Ambassador Credentialing Ceremony at the White House. On Friday, the President and the First Lady will host the Diplomatic Corps Reception for the foreign diplomatic corps at the White House.”

THE V.P.’S WEEK AHEAD: “The Vice President will be in Washington [this weekend]. There are no public events scheduled. … On Thursday, … the Vice President will deliver remarks on U.S. policy toward the Asia-Pacific region at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress. Following his opening address at the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue and on the eve of his trip to India and Singapore, the Vice President will focus on the United States’ enduring commitment to the rebalance toward Asia, India’s growing role in the Asia-Pacific region, and the critical importance of deepening U.S. trade relationships and building constituencies for shared economic values. This event at George Washington University will be open press.”

BEYOND THE BELTWAY -- Boston Globe A1, above fold, “CONFESSED STRANGLER’S BODY EXHUMED: Other victims’ loved ones urge DA to find evidence that may bring them closure,” by David Kramer and Maria Abel in Peabody: “The remnants of dirt-smeared bouquets still sat atop the casket Friday, as a team of gravediggers unearthed the remains of Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed before his death to 11 murders that transfixed and terrified Boston 50 years ago. … Pathologists … will soon remove a sample of his DNA and seek a genetic match with new evidence, in hope of conclusively linking him to the last of the killings, closing the book at last on the infamous Boston Strangler case. … As helicopters from several news outlets whirred above, gravediggers swept away dirt and grime from a large slab over the coffin, where at least five bouquets of dried flowers remained wrapped in plastic. … DeSalvo was stabbed to death in the Walpole state prison in 1973.” http://bo.st/14PkOME

-- SiriusXM's “Polioptics” with Josh King (SAT/SUN 12pm ET / 6 pm ET): John Skipper, president of ESPN Inc. and co-chairman of Disney Media Networks. Richard Haass, CFR president and author of “Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America's House in Order.” On SiriusXM's P.O.T.U.S. Ch. 124; also available for download on iTunes and at http://www.polioptics.com.

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Authors:

About The Author

Mike Allen is the chief White House correspondent for POLITICO. He comes to us from Time magazine where he was their White House correspondent. Prior to that, Allen spent six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush's first term, Capitol Hill, campaign finance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000. Before turning to national politics, he covered schools and local governments in rural counties outside Fredericksburg, Va., for The Free Lance-Star, then wrote about Doug Wilder, Oliver North, Chuck Robb and the Bobbitts for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where he nurtured police sources on overnight ride-alongs through housing projects. Allen also covered Mayor Giuliani, the Connecticut statehouse and the wacky rich of Greenwich for The New York Times. Before moving to The Times, he did stints in the Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post. Allen grew up in Orange County, Calif., and has a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.